World Premiere: It’s A Road Picture

The Road To Nowhere Staring Sarah Palin As

The Governor Who Never Accepts Earmarks

Until She Does

Fed and Treasury Offer to Work With Congress on Bailout Plan



 By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: September 18, 2008  

WASHINGTON – The head of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve began discussions on Thursday with Congressional leaders on what could become the biggest bailout in United States history.

While details remain to be worked out, the plan is likely to authorize the government to buy distressed mortgages at deep discounts from banks and other institutions. The proposal could result in the most direct commitment of taxpayer funds so far in the financial crisis that Fed and Treasury officials say is the worst they have ever seen.

For Georgians, a Much-Needed Break

 

By Tara Bahrampour

Washington Post Foreign Service

Friday, September 19, 2008; Page A14  

KVARIATI, Georgia — Kitty Arsenidze had beach plans in August, but then her country went to war. Russian troops occupied her town, Gori. A bomb hit her house. She spent her 50th birthday installing a new roof and windows. Only after the Russians left did she finally make it to the beach.

“We have so much stress after this bombing that I’m thinking that I have to make psychological healing,” she said, leaning on a green lawn chair by the Black Sea. “I feel better than in Gori.”

The people swimming, sunbathing, and zipping around on water scooters this week did not look as if they had just suffered a crushing military defeat.

USA

Sarah Palin said yes, thanks, to a road to nowhere in Alaska

 While seeking votes, she told Ketchikan residents she backed the ‘bridge to nowhere.’ As governor, she spent the money elsewhere and moved ahead with a $26-million road to the nonexistent bridge.

 By Erika Hayasaki, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 19, 2008  

GRAVINA ISLAND, ALASKA — The 3.2-mile-long partially paved “road to nowhere” meanders from a small international airport on Gravina Island, home to 50 people, ending in a cul-de-sac close to a beach.

Crews are working to finish it. But no one knows when anyone will need to drive it.

That’s because the $26-million road was designed to connect to the $398-million Gravina Island Bridge, more infamously known as the “bridge to nowhere.” Alaskan officials thought federal money would pay for the bridge, but Gov. Sarah Palin killed the project after it was ridiculed and Congress rescinded the money. Plans for the road moved forward anyway.

Some residents of Ketchikan — a city of 8,000 on a neighboring island where the bridge was to end — see the road as a symbol of wasteful spending that Palin could have curtailed. Some of them even accuse her of deception.

Ahoy matey.

If ye been cypherin’ why yer fellow Dharmaniacs be palaverin’ like land lubbers, they be not savvy to the tongue of the sea.  It be International Talk Like A Pirate day.

Hurray!

A round of grog fer all the hands.

I be Cap’n Hank Bloodbeard. and here be the reason we pillage and loot-

(T)he day is the only holiday to come into being as a result of a sports injury. He has stated that during a racquetball game between Summers and Baur, one of them reacted to the pain with an outburst of “Aaarrr!”, and the idea was born. That game took place on June 6, 1995, but out of respect for the observance of D-Day, they chose Summers’ ex-wife’s birthday, as it would be easy for him to remember.

Members of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster find additional, symbolic significance in celebrations of this day.

According to the Pastafarian belief system, pirates are “absolute divine beings” and the original Pastafarians. Their image as “thieves and outcasts” is misinformation spread by Christian theologians in the Middle Ages and by Hare Krishnas. Pastafarianism says that they were in fact “peace-loving explorers and spreaders of good will” who distributed candy to small children, and adds that modern pirates are in no way similar to “the fun-loving buccaneers from history.” Pastafarians celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19.

The inclusion of pirates in Pastafarianism was part of Henderson’s original letter to the Kansas School Board. It illustrated that correlation does not imply causation. Henderson put forth the argument that “global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of pirates since the 1800s.” A chart accompanying the letter shows that as the number of pirates decreased, global temperatures increased.

So they be doin’ it fer the Polar Bears.

Talking like a pirate, however, doesn’t just mean running through the hallways yelling “yarr!” at everyone. To get more in touch with one’s inner pirate, here is a short list of useful terms that may help readers throughout their day of pillaging and searching for buried treasure.

If ye steer a course to the official website of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, ye may wish to read the FAQ, to help ye splice the mainbrace proper like.  Then ye’ll be ready to talk like a pirate.

There will come a time when you have a chance to do the right thing.

I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by.  

Original article by Corey D. B. Walker and sub-headed The Deepening Crisis via counterpunch.com:

“The West is living through an economic and social crisis so unprecedented in its tempo, so complex in its effects, that there are many who do not know that it is taking place.”

Michael Harrington, The Next Left (1987)